Jeremy I. Pfeffer teaches
physics at the Rehovot campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
A graduate of Imperial College in London and the Hebrew University
in Jerusalem, he has taught science in high schools in England
and Israel and served as principal of several Israeli high schools.
He has written and published textbooks on Modern Physics in
both English and Hebrew. The present book is the result of a
private study that has stretched over the last twenty-five years.

Discusses the origins of the Book of Job, the key personalities in its narrative (God, Satan and Job), and the workings of Providence as reflected in Scripture and Talmudic source

A critical presentation of the sense of the Book of Job as it appears in the commentaries of R. Saadiah Gaon, R. Abraham Ibn Ezra, the Rashi School of exegetes, Maimonides, Nahmanides, Gersonides, R. Joseph Caspi, the Zohar and Kabbalists, Rabbeinu Bachya Asher, R. Zerahiah Garcian, R. Simeon ben Zemah Duran and R. Meir Lebush Malbi

Much of the material has never before appeared in the English language

Provides Hebrew setting of key words and phrases in the Job story

Of all the inventions of man’s
imagination, none transcends his primal belief in the existence
of invisible forces which shape a person’s destiny, often
in ways that make a mockery of his own efforts to do so. And of
all these arcane powers, none is more enigmatic than the Divine
Providence which underlies the belief in ethical monotheism. Just
why does God allow bad things to happen to good or innocent people?
The traditional Jewish context for such investigations was biblical
exegesis, in particular the interpretation and elucidation of the
Book of Job.

Over twenty medieval Hebrew commentaries
on the Book of Job have survived to the present day and it is the
ideas concerning Providence expressed in these works that form the
central core of this study. The final chapter brings the issue closer
to our own times through discussion of the Scientific Revolution
and the search for God’s Mind – moving away from the
sphere of theological speculation to that of mathematical physics.

Hardback ISBN:

978-1-84519-064-4

Hardback Price:

£49.95 / $69.50

Release Date:

April 2005

Page Extent / Format:

252 pp. / 229 x 152 mm

Illustrated:

William Blake engravings of The Book of Job

Preface

Synopsis of the Book of Job

1 The Origins of the Book of Job

2 The Personalities in the Book of Job
Job and his Companions
Satan
The God of Job

5 R. Simeon ben Zemah Duran's Commentary on
the Book of Job
Pointers to the Chapters

6 The Challenge of the New Apodosis

Appendix I Ibn Ezra's Summary of his Commentary
on the Book of Job

Appendix II Published Medieval Commentaries
on the Book of Job

Glossary of Hebrew Terms
Bibliography
Index

A scholarly work, it begins
with a synopsis before moving on to introduce the personalities
of the book and the way in which providence is understood in
other books of the Old Testament. The rest of the book is devoted
to a series of mediaeval commentaries by the greatest scholars
of their day, struggling as we do to explain why bad things
happen to good people…In this case, the author is trained
as a physicist but has steeped himself deeply in the text and
takes the reader along with him on his quest.Scientific
and Medical Network Review

In the last chapter Pfeffer brings his treatise closer
to our own times by considering the works of Spinoza and Malbim
of the 17th and 19th centuries respectively. Worthwhile for the
advanced student of the Book of Job.AJL Newsletter

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